Speaker Biographies

Confirmed Speakers

Hamadoun Touré

Secretary General, ITU *

* via video message

Dr Hamadoun I. Touré has been Secretary-General of the ITU since January 2007; he was re-elected for a second term in October 2010. He has wide professional experience in both the public and private sectors.

A national of Mali, Dr Touré is committed to ITU as an innovative, forward-looking organization adapted to meeting the challenges created by the rapidly-changing ICT environment, and to continuing to spearhead ITU towards implementing the resolutions of the World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS) and achieving the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs).

Dr Touré is married with four children and two grandchildren.

Rt Hon David Willetts MP

Member of Parliament for Havant and Former Minister for Universities and Science

David has been the Member of Parliament for Havant since 1992. He has worked at HM Treasury, the Number 10 Policy Unit, and served as Paymaster General in the last Conservative Government. He has also previously served as the Shadow Secretary of State for Innovation, Universities & Skills, Shadow Secretary of State for Work & Pensions and for Trade & Industry.

He is a Governor of the Ditchley Foundation, a member of the Council of the Institute for Fiscal Studies, a member of the Global Ageing Commission and a Visiting Professor at the Cass Business School.

From May 2010 to July 2014 David served as Minister for Universities and Science. He was appointed as a Privy Councillor in June 2010.

FAMILY LIFE:
David is married to Sarah Butterfield. She is an artist and has exhibited in London and New York.
They have two children: Imogen and Matthew

INTERESTS OUTSIDE OF POLITICS:
David and Sarah are keen walkers on the South Downs and swimmers. David has swum for charity against an Olympic hopeful and raised £1,500 for charity cycling in the Paris to Hayling ride.

Rahim Tafazolli

Director of the Centre for Communications Systems Research, University of Surrey

Rahim Tafazolli is the Director of the Centre for Communications Systems Research (CCSR) and 5G Innovation Centre (5GIC), University of Surrey in the UK. He has published more than 500 research papers in refereed journals, international conferences and as invited speaker. He is the editor of two books on “Technologies for Wireless Future” published by Wiley’s Vol.1 in 2004 and Vol.2 2006. He is currently chairman of EU Net!Works Technology Platform Expert Group, board member of the UK Future Internet Strategy Group (UK-FISG). He was appointed as Fellow of WWRF (Wireless World Research Forum) in April 2011, in recognition of his personal contribution to the wireless world. As well as heading one of Europe’s leading research groups.

Ed Vaizey MP

Minister of State for Culture and the Digital Economy, UK Government

Ed Vaizey MP was appointed Minister of State at the Department for Culture, Media and Sport and the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills, with responsibility for digital industries on 15 July 2014. He is the Conservative MP for Wantage and Didcot.

Ed was Shadow Minister for the Arts from 2006 to 2010. In 2004 he became a political speech writer. He was appointed Parliamentary Under Secretary of State for Culture, Communications and Creative Industries in May 2010.

Following his Education at Merton College, Oxford, Ed worked as a political researcher, before training and practising as a barrister. From 1996 to 2004 he was director of a public relations company.

Ed is married with 2 children.

Jan Färjh

Vice President, Head of Standardization and Industry, Ericsson

Jan Färjh took his M.Sc. in Telecommunications at the Royal Institute of Technology in Stockholm 1985. After his graduation he developed signal processing algorithms for airborne radar systems.

Joining Ericsson in 1990 he initially worked with radio access technologies. With a strong background in wireless research, Jan was part of Ericsson's pioneering activities in WCDMA in the early 90's. In 1996 he became manager of the unit responsible for radio access research. The research performed in this unit substantially contributed to the evolution of WCDMA, HSPA and LTE, technologies that today provide Mobile Broadband on global base.

In 2007 he became global Head of Ericsson Research. Ericsson Research is a global organization present in North America, Europe and Asia, consisting of around 600 persons.

Since November 2012 Jan is heading Ericsson's global Standardization and Industry unit within the Group Function Technology, led by Ericsson's CTO. In this role he is responsible for Ericsson’s standardization strategies and industry alignment in the areas of Telecoms, Data/IT and Media.

Philip Marnick

Group Director, Spectrum Policy Group, Ofcom

Philip is Group Director, Spectrum Policy Group at Ofcom, where he is responsible for setting and implementing the strategy for managing spectrum including clearing, awarding and licensing it.

Philip has over 27 years’ experience within the wireless communications industry. He has held senior executive positions covering technology, operations and strategy. Philip has worked for UK Broadband, O2, Orange, BT, J-Phone in Japan (now Softbank Mobile), Extreme Mobile and SpinVox (now Nuance).

Simon Towler

Deputy Director, Head of Telecommunications Policy, Department for Culture, Media and Sport, UK Government

Simon Towler joined the Department of Trade and Industry in 1992. He has held a wide range of policy posts including in civil aerospace, international trade policy, nuclear issues, telecommunications policy and better regulation as well as a secondment from 1998-2002 to the British Embassy in Washington DC. Simon joined the Department of Culture Media and Sport in January 2011 together with other colleagues responsible for telecommunications policy and relations with the sector. Simon is responsible for spectrum policy and the development of a long term strategy for the UK’s digital infrastructure needs. His team is part of the joint DCMS/BIS Digital Economy Unit set up in July 2014.

Chih-Lin I

Chief Scientist of Wireless Technologies, China Mobile Research Institute

Dr. Chih-Lin I is the China Mobile Chief Scientist of Wireless Technologies, in charge of advanced wireless communication R&D effort of China Mobile Research Institute (CMRI). She established the Green Communications Research Center of China Mobile, spearheading major initiatives including 5G Key Technologies R&D; high energy efficiency system architecture, technologies, and devices; green energy; C-RAN and soft base station.

Dr. I received her Ph.D. degree in Electrical Engineering from Stanford University, has almost 30 years experience in wireless communication area. She has worked in various world-class companies and research institutes, including wireless communication fundamental research department of AT&T Bell Labs; Headquarter of AT&T, as Director of Wireless Communications Infrastructure and Access Technology; ITRI of Taiwan, as Director of Wireless Communication Technology; Hong Kong ASTRI, as VP and the Founding GD of Communications Technology Domain.

Dr. I received the Trans. COM Stephen Rice Best Paper Award, and is a winner of CCCP “National 1000 talent” program. She was an elected Board Member of IEEE ComSoc, Chair of ComSoc Meeting and Conference Board, and the Founding Chair of IEEE WCNC Steering Committee. She is currently an Executive Board Member of GreenTouch, and a Network Operator Council Member of ETSI NFV.

Werner Mohr

Chairman, 5GPPP

Werner Mohr was graduated from the University of Hannover, Germany, with the Master Degree in electrical engineering in 1981 and with the Ph.D. degree in 1987.

Dr. Werner Mohr joined Siemens AG, Mobile Network Division in Munich, Germany in 1991. He was involved in several EU funded projects and ETSI standardization groups on UMTS and systems beyond 3G. Werner Mohr coordinated several EU and Eureka Celtic funded projects on 3G (FRAMES project), LTE and IMT-Advanced radio interface (WINNER I, II and WINNER+ projects), which developed the basic concepts for future radio standards. Since April 2007 he is with Nokia Siemens Networks in Munich Germany, where he is Head of Research Alliances. In addition, he is chairperson of the Net!Works European Technology Platform and now of the new communications networks related ETP NetWorld2020. Werner Mohr is also Chair of the Board of the 5G Infrastructure PPP Association. He was chair of the "Wireless World Research Forum – WWRF" from its launch in August 2001 up to December 2003. He is co-author of a book on "Third Generation Mobile Communication Systems" a book on "Radio Technologies and Concepts for IMT-Advanced" and a book “Mobile and Wireless Communications for IMT-Advanced and Beyond”.

Eduardo Esteves

Vice-President, Product Management, Qualcomm Technologies Inc.

Eduardo Esteves is a vice president of product management in Qualcomm’s Research group. He currently leads the team responsible for market strategy, technology adoption and industry collaboration.

Dr. Esteves has contributed to the evolution of satellite and wireless communications for more than 20 years. His areas of expertise include 4G, 3G, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, and wireless modem design.

Dr. Esteves received his PhD in electrical engineering from the University of Southern California. He also obtained an executive management certificate from the Anderson School of Management at UCLA, an MS from Pontifica Universidade Católica do Rio de Janeiro (Brasil) and BS from Instituto Militar de Engenharia (Brasil). Dr. Esteves holds more than 30 patents related to wireless communications.

LEE Hyeon Woo

5G Forum, Korea

Dr. LEE. Hyeon Woo is currently a Professor at Dankook University in Korea and serving as a chair of 5G forum global alliance sub committee as well as TTA IMT-Adv. Standard group chair. He worked as a National R&D Program Director of KEIT (Korean Evaluation Institute of Industrial Technology) under Ministry of Knowledge Economy of Korea from March 2009 to Feb. 2013.

He worked as Director and Head of Global Standard & Research Lab. in Telecom R&D Center of Samsung Electronics Co. in Korea until Feb. 2009.

He received BSEE from Seoul National University in 1985 and MBA from Sogang University in 1989, in Korea. He got an MS and Ph. D degree at KAIST, Korea in 1994 and 2003 respectively.

He Joined Samsung Electronics in 1984, starting from development of Telecommunication Systems in several wireline and wireless field.

Since 1996, he devoted himself to national and international standardization work such as ETSI, ARIB, TTA, 3GPP , 3GPP2 and ITU.

Takehiro Nakamura

Leader of ARIB 20B AH and Executive Director, NTT DOCOMO

Takehiro Nakamura joined NTT Laboratories in 1990. He is now VP and Director of the Radio Access Network Development Department of NTT DOCOMO, Inc.

Mr. Nakamura has been working for research and development of the W-CDMA, HSPA, LTE/LTE-Advanced and 5G technologies.

He has been engaged in the standardization activities for the W-CDMA, HSPA, LTE/LTE-Advanced and 5G at ARIB in Japan since 1997. He is currently the leader of 2020 and Beyond Ad Hoc(20B AH) in ARIB since October 2013.

He has been contributing to standardization activities in 3GPP since1999. He contributed to 3GPP TSG-RAN as a vice chairman during March 2005 to March 2009 and as a chairman during April 2009 to March 2013.

Adrian Scrase

CTO, ETSI

Adrian Scrase played a central role in the creation of the “3rd Generation Partnership Project” (3GPP) and is responsible for the operations of the 3GPP Project Co-ordination Group. He heads 3GPPs’ Mobile Competence Centre (MCC) which is an International team of 20 experts who provide comprehensive support to the Project.

He was also principally involved in the formation of the recently created “oneM2M” Partnership Project and oversees ETSI’s support to that initiative.

He is CTO within ETSI with operational responsibility for all of ETSI’s standards production activities. He has more than 30 years experience in the telecommunications field, which includes 25 years of experience in standardization.

Asok Chatterjee

Executive Director, Standards, TSDSI

Dr. Asok Chatterjee did his Master’s in Radio Physics and Electronics from the University of Calcutta. Then he went on to receive his Master’s in Applied Science, and Ph.D. degrees in Electrical Engineering from the University of Ottawa, Canada.

He spent his professional life in various organizations, starting with R&D, to Systems Development, to telecom management in multiple branches of telecommunications industry – local and long distance communications, satellite communications, mobile communications, and telecommunications equipment manufacturing.

Dr. Chatterjee was one of the founders of 3GPP about 16 years back – the developer of 2G, 3G, and currently the 4G/LTE technology. More recently he was instrumental in establishing the Partnership Project named ‘oneM2M’, which is creating service layer standards for various M2M verticals.

Over the last six months, he has been exclusively spearheading the establishment of TSDSI – the newly founded India’s TSDO. Now with TSDSI becoming operational, he has been appointed the Executive Director, Standardization of TSDSI.

Kent Rochford

Co-director, NIST/NTIA Center for Advanced Communications

Kent Rochford is the Director of the Communications Technology Laboratory within the National Institute of Standards and Technology in Boulder, Colorado. In this role he also serves as co-director of the Center for Advanced Communications, a collaboration between NIST and the National Telecommunications and Information Administration, both agencies of the US Department of Commerce. Previously he served as Senior Director for Sharp Laboratories of America’s Material and Device Applications laboratories. Prior to joining SLA in 2012, Kent was chief of NIST’s Quantum Electronics and Photonics Division. Previously, Kent was the manager of the Systems and Algorithms department at YAFO Networks, a fiber optic communications start-up. Kent received his Ph.D. in Optical Sciences from the University of Arizona, a B.S. in Electrical Engineering at Arizona State University, and an MBA from the University of Colorado.

Julian David

CEO, techUK

Julian is the CEO of techUK. Julian was appointed as the director general of Intellect in March 2012 and led its transformation to techUK in November 2013. techUK represents the companies and technologies that are defining today the world that we will live in tomorrow. More than 850 companies are members of techUK. Collectively they employ more than 500,000 people, about half of all tech sector jobs in the UK. Julian is also a board member of Digital Europe, the association for digital technology companies in Europe and represents techUK at WITSA, the World IT and Services Association. Julian has spent over 30 years in the technology industry. He worked for many years at IBM, holding various positions in sales and marketing working with IBM clients across retail distribution, small and medium business and public sector organisations in the UK, Europe and worldwide. Latterly his work concentrated on helping SMEs establish successful operations in the UK primarily focused on local government and health.

Nigel Jefferies

Chairman, WWRF

Nigel Jefferies is a senior standards manager with Huawei Technologies and Chairman of the Wireless World Research Forum, a global partnership between industry and academia to develop a research agenda for mobile communications. Previously he was Head of Academic Relationships within Vodafone Group Research & Development and a Principal Mathematician at Racal Research Ltd. In the past he led the European-funded IST project SHAMAN, which studied the security of future mobile systems, and ran the Secure Applications Steering Group for Mobile VCE. Other collaborative research projects on various aspects of security for mobile communications include 3GS3 in the UK-funded LINK programme, and ASPeCT and USECA in the European ACTS programme. His research interests include cryptography, security of systems and applications of mathematics to telecommunications. He received a PhD in functional analysis from Goldsmith's College, London, and an MA in mathematics from the Queen's College, Oxford, and is a visiting professor at Kingston University. He is a Fellow of the Institute of Mathematics and its Applications and a Chartered Mathematician.

Mischa Dohler

Head of Centre for Telecommunications Research in the Department of Informatics, King’s College London

Mischa Dohler is full Professor in Wireless Communications at King's College London, Head of the Centre for Telecommunications Research, co-founder and member of the Board of Directors of the smart city pioneer Worldsensing, Fellow and Distinguished Lecturer of the IEEE, and Editor-in-Chief of the Transactions on Emerging Telecommunications Technologies.

He is a frequent keynote, panel and tutorial speaker. He has pioneered several research fields, contributed to numerous wireless broadband and IoT/M2M standards, holds a dozen patents, organized and chaired numerous conferences, has more than 200 publications, and authored several books. He has a citation h-index of 36 (top 3%).

He acts as policy, technology and entrepreneurship adviser, examples being Richard Branson's Carbon War Room, the House of Lords UK, the EPSRC ICT Strategy Advisory Team, the European Commission, the ISO Smart City working group, and various start-ups.

He is also an entrepreneur, angel investor, passionate pianist and fluent in 6 languages. He has talked at TEDx. He had coverage by national and international TV & radio; and his contributions have featured on BBC News and the Wall Street Journal.

Jim Norton

Chair, UK Spectrum Policy Forum

Aged sixty one, Jim Norton is an independent director, policy adviser and public speaker. He is Past President (2011-12) of BCS, the Chartered Institute for IT and a Fellow of the UK Royal Academy of Engineering, where he is a member of the Engineering Policy Committee. Jim is also an external member of the Board of the UK Parliament's Office of Science & Technology (POST). He is the independent Chair of the UK Spectrum Policy Forum established for the Department of Culture, Media & Sport and facilitated by techUK, where Jim won a 2014 Outstanding Achievement award. Jim is a Governor of Coventry University, where he is a member of the Audit & Risk Committee. He is a Board Member and Trustee of the Foundation for Information Policy Research (FIPR), as well as a member of the 'Electronic Communications Expert Advisory Panel' for the Irish Commission for Communications Regulation (ComReg).

Kumar Singarajah

Director, Regulatory Affairs & Business Development, Avanti

Kumar Singarajah is Director of Regulatory Affairs & Business Development at Avanti, where he has responsibility for market access, licensing, spectrum management / engineering and frequency coordination. Kumar joined Avanti in January 2007, and is a member of the company’s senior management team.

Prior to joining Avanti, he worked in various senior engineering and regulatory roles in the space and satellite communications sector at Logica (in UK and Germany), SES-Astra (in Luxembourg), Global Radio (in Luxembourg), Inmarsat (in UK) and ICO Global Communications (in UK).

He has 25 years of industry experience in the satellite sector including in the Fixed Satellite Service (FSS), Broadcasting Satellite Service (BSS), Mobile Satellite Satellite Service (MSS) and other sectors.

He holds a BSc (Hon) degree in Electrical Engineering from Imperial College, London University and a MSc in Mobile / Satellite Communications from University of Surrey.

Nektaria Efthymiou

Head of Network Strategy, Telefonica UK

Nektaria started her career in University of Bradford where she was working as Research Assistant for EU research funded projects on third generation telecommunication systems. She moved to NEC’s R&D lab in UK in 1999 where she was researching and developing radio resource management algorithms for 3rd generation systems. She joint Hutchison 3G supporting the launch of the first 3G network in UK and in 2004 she moved to O2. She currently runs the network strategy team in Telefonica UK responsible for driving and supporting network strategic decision. She holds several postgraduate qualifications including MSc, MBA and PhD and 10 international patents.

Peiying Zhu

Fellow and Leader of Global 5G Research Program, Huawei

Dr. Peiying Zhu is a Huawei Fellow and Senior Director of North American Wireless Research and Standards. The focus of her research is advanced wireless access technologies for LTE/LTE-A and beyond. She is currently leading 5G wireless system research in Huawei. Prior to joining Huawei in 2009, Peiying was a Nortel Fellow and Director of Advanced Wireless Access Technology in the Nortel Wireless Technology Lab. She led the team and pioneered research and prototyping on MIMO-OFDM and Multi-hop relay. Many of these technologies developed by the team have been adopted into WiMAX /LTE standards and 4G products. Peiying has more than 150 granted patents in those areas. She was actively involved in IEEE 802.16 and LTE standards development, served as IEEE 802.16j Relay Task Group vice chair, various ad-hoc chairs, and IEEE 802.16 Working Group Secretary positions. She is a WiFi Alliance Board member and Treasurer.

Dr. Zhu received her Ph.D. degree in electrical Engineering from Concordia University in Canada and M.S. and Ph.D. degrees in Electrical Engineering from Southeast University in China.

Colin Langtry

Chief of the Radiocommunication Study Groups Department , ITU

Colin Langtry is the Chief of the Radiocommunication Study Groups Department (SGD) in the International Telecommunication Union. Mr. Langtry’s prior experience includes working as the Counsellor for ITU-R Study Groups 5 and 8 supporting their studies on amateur, fixed, mobile and radiodetermination services, responsibility for the Text Editing and Publications Division of the ITU Radiocommunication Bureau and, before joining the ITU, managing the spectrum planning activities in the Australian spectrum management agency.

Janette Stewart

Principal, Analysys Mason

Janette Stewart is a Principal with Analysys Mason, a consultancy specialising in the telecommunications, media and technology sectors, where she focuses on spectrum matters. She joined Analysys Mason in 2001 and has advised a variety of clients including national regulators, fixed and mobile network operators and spectrum end users on a wide range of spectrum-related studies around the globe. She began her career in the Radiocommunications Agency (now Ofcom), and was part of the RA 3G auction team responsible for awarding 2.1GHz 3G licences in 2000. During that time she worked extensively within the CEPT and ITU-R on matters relating to spectrum for IMT-2000, and the European preparations for WRC-2000.

Amongst other topics, Janette has advised on wireless technology network strategy, co-existence issues, spectrum valuation, spectrum policy and the future demand for spectrum. Her recent project experience includes assisting mobile operators with developing 4G spectrum strategies, participation for a 4G licence beauty contest and authoring of the licence application, and assessing the usage metrics that regulators might need to capture in order to provide further information on the quality of shared spectrum. Prior to that Janette led Analysys Mason’s contribution to a project for the Ministry of Defence providing market and technology advice relating to 2.3GHz and 3.4GHz spectrum release, and assessed co-existence between LTE and DTT for the Danish regulator. Janette’s wider experience also includes advising on spectrum needs for the Emergency Services.

Janette trained as an electronic engineer focussing on radio frequency engineering and has a B.Eng. from Edinburgh University as well as an M.Sc. in radio engineering from the University of Bradford.

Dan Warren

Senior Director of Technology, GSMA

As Senior Director of Technology at the GSMA, Dan Warren is a technology subject matter expert across all of the GSMA’s Project and Working Groups and key spokesperson for the GSMA. His current work focusses on future network technology including Function Virtualisation, Heterogeneous Networks, Machine to Machine and 5G. Dan led the GSMA’s definition of Voice over LTE (VoLTE) and LTE Roaming, as well as being a key technology expert on IMS, IP Interconnect, and Wi-Fi Roaming.

Dan is a recognised industry expert on all aspects of mobile network technology and business, and is a regular spokesperson at conferences including Mobile World Congress, CTIA and the LTE World Series. Dan has written columns for Connected Planet and RCR Wireless, is regularly quoted in Tier 1 and industry press, and was listed in Global Telecoms Business ‘Top 40 Under 40’ for 2009, 2010 and 2012.

Prior to the GSMA, Dan worked at Vodafone and Nortel. Dan holds a PhD in Applied Mathematics and a degree in Mathematics.

Alistair Urie

Architecture Strategy Director, Wireless CTO Office, Alcatel-Lucent

Alistair Urie is currently Architecture Strategy Director and lead for 5G strategy in the Alcatel-Lucent Wireless Product Division and Bell Labs Fellow. His current interests include 5G mobile systems, LTE/EPC networking, legacy and IMS interworking, small cell systems, cellular/WLAN interworking and spectrum management. He has previously worked in Alcatel-Lucent on end-to-end network solutions, network strategy, hybrid terrestrial-satellite broadcast networks, standardisation management, mobile systems product strategy and international research programmes (European RACE Programme) for GSM and UMTS systems.

Prior to joining Alcatel in 1991 he had been involved in both line and radio transmission system research at the Telecom Australia Research Laboratories and had also worked at the Dept. of Science Antarctic Division in Australia.

David Wood

Chair, London Futurists

David Wood has spent 25 years envisioning, architecting, implementing, supporting, and avidly using smart connected mobile devices, including ten years with PDA manufacturer Psion PLC, then ten more with smartphone operating system specialist Symbian Ltd.

Whilst at Psion, David was part of the team that conceived and formed Symbian, the creator of the world's first successful smartphone operating system, with the outrageous vision that, one day, everyone would want to use a smartphone that was connected to rich services and contents on a wireless network. As a member of Symbian's leadership team in London from 1998-2009, he held executive responsibility at different times for development, technical consulting, partnering, and research.

Subsequently, David was Technology Planning Lead / CTO of Accenture Mobility from 2010-2013, overseeing a network of more than 40 technical authorities, that spanned every technology discipline, product domain, and geographical region. He also also co-led Accenture's Mobility Health business initiative, serving as technology coach in the fast-moving intersection between two of the world's most powerful and significant industries: Health and Mobility.

David now acts as independent writer, consultant, and catalyst. As chair of London Futurists, he organises regular meetups in London, and online, to elevate serious analysis of scenarios for the next 3-40 years. London Futurists currently has over 2,700 members. As principal of Delta Wisdom, he aims to provide 'intelligence for profound change', focussing on the dramatic impact of rapidly changing technology on human individuals and communities. His most recent book was published in September 2014: "Smartphones and beyond: lessons from the remarkable rise and fall of Symbian".

Ramjee Prasad

Founding Chairman, Global ICT Standardisation Forum for India and Professor, Director, CTIF, Aalborg University, Denmark

Ramjee Prasad is currently the Director of the Center for TeleInFrastruktur (CTIF) at Aalborg University, Denmark and Professor, Wireless Information Multimedia Communication Chair.

Ramjee Prasad is the Founder Chairman of the Global ICT Standardisation Forum for India (GISFI: www.gisfi.org) established in 2009. GISFI has the purpose of increasing of the collaboration between European, Indian, Japanese, North-American and other worldwide standardization activities in the area of Information and Communication Technology (ICT) and related application areas. He was the Founder Chairman of the HERMES Partnership – a network of leading independent European research centres established in 1997, of which he is now the Honorary Chair.

He is a Fellow of the Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineers (IEEE), USA, the Institution of Electronics and Telecommunications Engineers (IETE), India, the Institution of Engineering and Technology (IET), UK, Wireless World Research Forum (WWRF) and a member of the Netherlands Electronics and Radio Society (NERG), and the Danish Engineering Society (IDA).

He is also a Knight (“Ridder”) of the Order of Dannebrog (2010), a distinguished award by the Queen of Denmark.

He has received several international award, the latest being 2014 IEEE AESS Outstanding Organizational Leadership Award for: “Organizational Leadership in developing and globalizing the CTIF (Center for TeleInFrastruktur) Research Network”.

He is the founding editor-in-chief of the Springer International Journal on Wireless Personal Communications. He is a member of the editorial board of other renowned international journals including those of River Publishers. Ramjee Prasad is a member of the Steering committees of many renowned annual international conferences, e.g., Wireless Personal Multimedia Communications Symposium (WPMC); Wireless VITAE and Global Wireless Summit (GWS). He has published more than 30 books, 900 plus journals and conferences publications, more than 15 patents, a sizeable amount of graduated PhD students (over 90) and an even larger number of graduated M.Sc. students (over 200). Several of his students are today worldwide telecommunication leaders themselves.

Frank Fitzek

Professor, Aalborg University and Principal Investigator, Communication and Storage, Dresden 5G Lab

Frank H. P. Fitzek is a Professor in the department of Electronic Systems, Aalborg University, Denmark. He received his diploma (Dipl.-Ing.) degree in electrical engineering from the University of Technology - Rheinisch-Westfälische Technische Hochschule (RWTH) - Aachen, Germany, in 1997 and his Ph.D. (Dr.-Ing.) in Electrical Engineering from the Technical University Berlin, Germany in 2002 and became Adjunct Professor at the University of Ferrara, Italy in the same year. He co-founded the start-up company acticom GmbH in Berlin in 1999. He has visited various research institutes including Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), VTT, and Arizona State University. In 2005 he won the YRP award for the work on MIMO MDC and received the Young Elite Researcher Award of Denmark. He was selected to receive the NOKIA Champion Award several times in a row from 2007 to 2011. In 2008 he was awarded the Nokia Achievement Award for his work on cooperative networks. In 2011 he received the SAPERE AUDE research grant from the Danish government and in 2012 he received the Vodafone Innovation price. His current research interests are in the areas of wireless and mobile communication networks, mobile phone programming, network coding, cross layer as well as energy efficient protocol design and cooperative networking.

Cameron Rejali

CTO, Arqiva

Cameron Rejali is the Chief Technology Officer of Arqiva, a communications infrastructure and media services company, operating at the heart of the broadcast, satellite and mobile communications markets. He is responsible for technology leadership at Arqiva, understanding external technology trends and their impact on Arqiva, and their potential exploitation and commercialisation by Arqiva.

Cameron joined in 2013 from BT, where he was Managing Director of Voice and Interoperability Services within BT's Innovate & Design business unit. In this role he led the transformation of BT's £5 billion global voice portfolio by developing BT's next generation IP voice and interoperability services, as well as BT Group's Customer Experience program. Prior to this Cameron was MD of Product Management & Development for BT Wholesale where he developed and launched three generations of broadband services, wholesale ethernet services for fixed and mobile carriers, and global IP Exchange services.

Before joining BT, Cameron held a variety of senior management positions at Sprint Corporation.

Cameron has a Bachelor’s degree in Economics from Harvard and a post graduate degree in Economics from the University of Chicago. Cameron is married with five children and lives in Surrey.

Martin Koyabe

Head of Research & Consultancy Division, Commonwealth Telecommunications Organisation

Dr Martin Koyabe is Head of Research and Consultancy division at the Commonwealth Telecommunication Organization (CTO). He has extensive experience working in the telecoms sector and academia on ICT research and development.

Before joining CTO, Martin was a Senior Researcher/Technical Lead in Information Security with BT, where he worked for over 10 years in various R&D positions within BT Group and BT Technology Services & Operations (TSO). While at BT, he participated and lead several ICT research & development projects (both within and outside BT). Part of his achievements involves developing and down-streaming innovative ICT solutions into BT’s line of businesses; and designing, prototyping and deploying Information Security solutions for BT customers.

In the last two decades, Martin has worked on numerous technical projects in Africa, Europe and US. He was among the first Internet engineers to pioneer the Full-Internet deployment & connectivity in Kenya in early ’90s, while working as the Principal Engineer with African Regional Centre for Computing (ARCC). He is also a technical expert/reviewer for the European Commission (EC) and has published widely in international journals and conferences, and co-invented several patents.

Martin has a PhD in Communications Engineering from Aberdeen University, UK and an executive education in Service & Managing Innovation from Judge Business School, University of Cambridge, UK.

Shaoli Kang

System Engineer, China Academy of Telecommunication Technology

Dr Kang Shaoli is the chief expert of wireless innovation centre of China Academy of Telecommunication Technology (CATT).

From November 2000 to May 2005, Dr Kang acted as a project manager in CATT, focusing on R&D of TD-SCDMA. Then she worked in CCSR of University of Surrey as a research fellow and doing research on projects from EPSRC and OFCOM.

From September 2007, Dr Kang came back to CATT, focusing on speeding up the standard and industrial progress of TDD technology. Since 2012, she has been leading the 5G research in CATT.

Howard Benn

Head of Standards and Industrial Affairs, Samsung Electronics Research Institute

Howard started his career in the fixed telecommunication sector (Plessey) back in 1982, did his degree and PhD at Bradford University, moving into radio based communications in 1989. As one of the fathers of GSM he started working in ETSI GSM standards committees in 1993, helping create 3GPP and chairing 3GPP RAN 4 from 1998 to 2007. He has been a board member of ETSI since 2008, a member of the ICANN Nomcom in 2013, and a member of the Strategy Advisory Board for the UK 5G innovation centre at Surrey University. His current role is ‘Head of Standards and Industrial Affairs’ for Samsung Electronics R&D Institute in the UK, managing a team of engineers covering ETSI, 3GPP, ATSC, GSMA. His team is also very active in the EU Horizon 2020 program with a focus on the 5G PPP activities.